


Down came the rain and washed the spider out

by Kyriadamorte



Series: weave me a web of steel and sunshine (sensate-verse AU) [2]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Sense8 (TV)
Genre: Brief Mentions of Non-Con, Chantry Bashing, Deirdre has a Potty Mouth, Gen, mentions of the Rite of Tranquility, relationships are more pre-ships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-09
Updated: 2017-07-09
Packaged: 2018-11-29 16:23:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11444577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kyriadamorte/pseuds/Kyriadamorte
Summary: Deidre decided from a very early age that, as regards the Maker, there are three options.  One, he doesn't exist.  Two, he does exist and the Chantry is so wrong about him that he will probably never bother to return for them.  Three, he does exist and the Chantry is right about him and he's a shit who deserves neither their love nor their respect.This attitude serves her well when a giant Avvar woman appears in what she thought was solitary confinement.OR: Deirdre Trevelyan is much more excited about this whole sensate-thing than Cullen was.





	Down came the rain and washed the spider out

**Author's Note:**

> Part 2 of the sensates-in-Thedas verse. Can be read in any order, but it might work a little better if you read Spider-mind first.

Deidre decided from a very early age that, as regards the Maker, there are three options.One, he doesn't exist.Two, he does exist and the Chantry is so wrong about him that he will probably never bother to return for them.Three, he does exist and the Chantry is right about him and he's a shit who deserves neither their love nor their respect.

 

The first whisperings of this conclusion are born when she is nine years old and her tea is too hot.She blows on it gently and freezes it solid.Her mother and father, who had doted on her and bought her all sorts of books and called her their clever girl refuse to be in the same room as her or even meet her gaze.There is no more teasing laughter from her mother.Her father stops throwing her, giggling, into the pond near their summer home.

 

Her siblings leave the property all together.

 

Within a week, templars have come to take her away and no one will even hug her goodbye.She is crying and screaming and kicking and one of the templars that isn't dragging her by the arm uses his powers on her, leaving her stunned and empty.

 

Her parents say nothing.After all, they love the Maker and would never fight against his will.

 

The whisperings become murmurs when a boy is made Tranquil for trying to sneak out to see mother before she died. 

 

_Champions of the Just my left butt cheek._

 

After more than half her life spent in what is arguably one of the more sedate Circles, the murmurs are a constant roar and she would like nothing more than for the Chantry in its entirety to go fuck itself.

 

This attitude serves her well when a giant Avvar woman appears in what she _thought_ was solitary confinement.She's easily the tallest woman Deirdre has ever seen with a spattering of freckles and a huge mane of curly red hair, braids and beads and feathers woven in seemingly at random.

 

Deirdre jumps to her feet and summons a barrier and is about to fling fire at her when the woman throws her head back and laughs.

 

"Aha - yet another mage! Excellent news - our mind-hold shall be strong indeed!"

 

Deirdre has never been faced with someone actually _excited_ to hear she's a mage.

 

"Our- y'what?" she says.

 

Her governess would have been horrified by that sentence.Possibly even more than she had been at finding the frozen and shattered teacup.

 

"Mind-hold. Oh, what is it you lowlanders call it?Clump? Cloud? No, _cluster_ \- that's it!"

 

Because, apparently, her life was not difficult enough as it was. 

 

She's no expert, but most of what she's heard of clusters and sensates hasn't been good.Madness.Mind-control.Magisters carrying out mass assassinations without ever leaving their bedrooms.

 

On the other hand, the Chantry also thinks that all mages will resort to blood magic if there's no Templar there to watch them piss and that every mage is an abomination waiting to happen.Deirdre has met a grand total of one _actual_ blood mage (one that was not simply unlucky enough to get a paper cut near an excitable templar) and suspects that, in some Circles at least, the word 'abomination' functions effectively in the record books as a synonym for 'pregnant underage mage.'

 

She decides to put off panicking for the moment at least.It's rather difficult to be too upset anyway when presented with a six foot five embodiment of sunshine in the snow.

 

"I am Ragna Runadotten of Hammerhold.Well-met, hold-mate.May the hearth of our hearts burn forever warm and the light of our knowledge illuminate the darkest corners,” the woman - Ragna something of somewhere, apparently - says rather formally (although the gravitas is somewhat offset by the way she is bouncing on the tips of her toes).

 

"Um- yes.Deirdre Trevelyan, at your service," she responds, scrambling to remember manners and etiquette she’s long since abandoned.

 

Ragna continues to bounce, grinning at her expectantly. 

 

"Yes. Well-" Andraste's flaming backside, solitary confinement has not done wonders for her social skills. "I'm not sure if there is some sort of protocol for this-it's not a particularly common occurrence for us, I'm afraid-"

 

"Aye," Ragna says, looking something other than jubilant for the first time since she arrived. “Mind-holds are feared and reviled in the Lowlands, as are the gods.The priests of your flaming lady and jealous god teach you to sever yourselves from the world around you, to hate the bonds that exist between us and the gods, between us and each other.It makes the Lowlands a cold and lonely place, though there is less ice and fewer people than in the mountains."

 

She approaches Deirdre and clasps both hands in her own, staring earnestly into her eyes. "You need never fear me, hold-sister.The mind-hold is a gift from the gods to bind our world together.It is understanding that no Lowlander book can capture.It is strength beyond that of dragons and giants.It is belonging and freedom.It is the purest form of connection, of love."

 

Well. 

 

In many ways, Deirdre is still nine years old - helpless and curious and alone and longing for affection.

 

The Chantry’s warnings never really stood much of a chance.

 

“Alright, tell me what you know.”

 

Ragna grins.

 

~

 

The speak for hours, most of their conversation taking place in Hammerhold so they’ll have something to look at other than four dark stone walls in Ostwick.Deirdre takes a good few minutes to delight in seeing more snow than she has in her whole life.Ragna indulges her.

 

They talk and talk and Deirdre is overwhelmed by how little the Chantry knows.

 

She really should stop being surprised by this at some point.

 

She wonders what happens to the clusters who don’t have someone like Ragna to guide them.She shivers and it’s not from the cold.

 

“The hold-parent is usually there to teach the mind-hold they birth.When that is not possible, they will ask the gods to help anchor the mind-hold to a person known to them,” Ragna explains. “Ours is an anchored hold.Our hold-father, Halvar, knew he would not likely live long enough to guide us, so he asked the gods to find a different teacher - me!”

 

Her smile is full of teeth and she is bursting with pride.

 

“Why aren’t all clust- er, mind-holds birthed that way then?”

 

“Well, while it does have the advantage ensuring you do not get a hold full of frightened lowlanders with no one to guide them, it can also lead to weak mind-holds."

 

"One with few mages?" Deirdre asks, remembering what Ragna had said hours ago when she had almost gotten a handful of flames to the face.

 

"Or one where the members are too similar.”Ragna adds. “Our strengths come from our differences, from the different knowledge and skills and temperaments each member brings to the hold."

 

"But won't that be rather uncomfortable?Too many dissimilar minds knocking about in there?"

 

Ragna laughs as if she has just told some great joke, "Lowlanders!”

 

“And why bother birthing a cluster at all,” Deirdre continues, when it becomes apparent that her first question isn’t going to be answered. “when you know - or suspect - you won’t be around to help them?”

 

“Sometimes the gods demand it.Sometimes you yourself feel how the world is fracturing around you, calling out for souls to bind it together.”

 

Deirdre finds this answer deeply unsatisfying, but is not feeling quite rude enough to say so.

 

“So are all clusters birthed from the Avvar?”

 

“Many, but not all.Many of the Dalish also cast nets out into the world.And Halvar himself was birthed from a hold-mother in Rivain.We know little of clusters birthed from Tevinter hold-parents except that they are not to be trusted.They are the sort to build a hold simply to burn it down and feast on the corpses.”

 

A rare note of anger darkens Ragna’s countenance before another smile blooms on her face.“And, of course, there are the Fereldans and Orlesians who are ballsy enough to birth their own hold no matter what their flaming lady says.”

 

She claps Deirdre on the back.“You, hold-sister, I think will be such a one.”

 

Deirdre doubts this, but appreciates the vote of confidence all the same.

 

When she is let out of solitary confinement the next day, she’s still got enough of a smile teasing at her lips that the templars nearly leave her in for another day.

 

~

 

It takes her a few visits with Adaar before she realizes that he is one of the other mages that Ragna was referring to.He doesn't use it often, preferring to do most of his killing with an unnecessarily large sword, but she pops in on him during a job tracking down some particularly nasty highwaymen and sees him pull the leader's skull into his palm with a rush of force magic before smashing it to the ground like a watermelon.It's absolutely disgusting and possibly the single most badass thing Deirdre has ever seen in her life.

 

She tells him as much and he throws his head back and laughs, a great booming sound.

 

“You are stuck with a bunch of degenerates running around in skirts, bullying the sheep they are supposed to take care of as if that makes them warriors.I’m not sure if I trust your judgement, but I will take the compliment in the spirit it was given,” he says, still chuckling.

 

While she heartily approves of the description of templars, she’s not sure if she likes being referred to as a sheep.

 

She’s herded to her next class with a few other mages, all of their heads bowed low, and she has to concede the point.

 

~

 

When she first meets Siona Lavellan, she manages to scare off a ram that she had been tracking for the better part of the morning.She feels terrible about it, but Siona waves her off with a smile.

 

“We have another week at least before the food stores grow low enough to worry.Besides, this area is hardly barren and it is not every day we welcome a new member into our clan.”

 

“I- thank y- wait, what?” Deirdre manages to get out, rather eloquently.

 

She wonders if there is simply something about this whole cluster business that makes her flail like a socially incompetent ass or if she simply is one and hasn’t noticed because, in the Circle, everyone else is, too.

 

“As a member of my cluster, you are now part of the clan as well,” Siona says, amusement twinkling in the corners of her eyes.

 

“It doesn’t matter that I’m…well, human?” From what she’s heard of the Dalish, it seems a rather glaring problem.

 

“In some clans it might,” Siona concedes, “but that is why such clans wither and die while ours is more than three hundred strong.You are a Friend of the People.We need friends to survive in this world; it is foolish to pretend otherwise.”

 

When they return to the interwoven circles of aravels, she's introduced to each clan member that they pass, which is a bit of an odd experience.They greet her with some bowing and hand gestures and what she assumes is some rather formal ancient elvish all while looking at...not quite her face.

 

The Keeper, when they get to her, lights some incense and sings some songs, Siona’s gentle voice weaving a harmony.About halfway through, Lavellan lets her sink a little further in so she can understand the words being sung.

 

_Around the world, a forest grows_

_In the mountains, in the deserts, in the far-off plains_

_Its roots grow deep, it’s branches wide and reaching_

_I am a tree, but we are the forest_

_The Creators planted a wooded grove_

_So full of every kind of life_

_And at its center Arlathan_

_So too, let our fruit feed the People_

_Let our branches shelter them_

_Let us all now join together_

_Let the seeds of Elvhenan live on._

 

Somewhere, Deirdre thinks with more than a little satisfaction, her thoroughly Andrastean mother is waking up in a cold sweat and has no idea why.

 

The best (and worst) is probably when she meets Siona’s parents.Her Mamae cries when she hears that Deirdre is locked in a Circle, offering to teach her about all the plants she will never get a chance to see.Her Babae offers to teach Deirdre what sounds like some truly exciting Dalish magic.Her Dadae pushes dish after dish on them for Deirdre to try until poor Siona is probably full to bursting.

 

When it’s time to leave, the bells for evening meal in Ostwick sounding at the back of Deirdre’s mind, all three of them hug her goodbye.It’s the first time she’s been properly hugged since she was nine years old, but she very much _does not_ cry.

 

It's weird and a bit awkward and there are rocks beneath her knees and three sweaty, grass-stained Dalish elves are embracing her (them) and calling her daughter and, okay, maybe she is a crying _a little_.

 

~

 

Cadash is loud and crass and drunk more often than not and Deirdre thinks he's _amazing_.His face is covered in scars - more than a few, Deirdre suspects, from his own knives, with which he gesticulates wildly as speaks.Nevertheless, he appears more than competent when using them on _other_ people.

 

He's smart in other ways, too.He's quite good at tinkering with things, although he's apparently "blind as an Orleasian nug in a mabari turd" when it comes to actually inventing things.He also knows more languages than she does, though she suspects he sounds equally ridiculous in all of them.

 

They talk about science and history and he lets her read the more interesting books that come his way before selling them.

 

They also have burping contests and talk about sex ( _weird_ sex) and smoke quite a lot of elfroot.

 

~

 

Gaius hurts her and heals her in equal measure, looking back at her like a warped mirror.They're both prisoners, subjected to the whims and wills of others, but (she doesn’t delude herself) his jailers are worse.His punishments are more frequent, harsher, his workload heavier.So much of his life is hers, but worse, yet he does not seem to nurse the same bitterness, the same anger that she does.It shames her.

 

"It is not virtue that makes me as I am, _amica_ ," he says gently, "but necessity.Angry slaves tend not to live very long."

 

"Neither do most angry mages, but I've got the surname of some of the Chantry’s biggest butt-buddies so the templars let me get away with more than most.They haven't figured out my family has long since stopped giving a shit."

 

She snorts, shaking her head, "And there I go again, picking at scabs.Hating my family for being like everyone else."

 

"And yet you take punishment meant for others," Gaius points out. "You're fueled by your own feelings, yes, but you use your anger in the service of others.” 

 

His hand brushes against the cut on her forehead she received from blocking a slap meant for one of the younger mages. “Being angry doesn't make you a bad person, just like my lack of it does not necessarily make me a good one."

 

"You are, though.Good."

 

She looks at the bottoms of his feet, raw and blistered courtesy of his master's fireball when his dinner had been served late.

 

She reaches out to heal him, forgetting that she's not really there. They are, therefore, both surprised when a rush of energy and puff of mist spits out of Gaius’s fingers.Gaius makes a little chirp of surprise, his eyes going wide as he nearly falls off the stool he’s perched on.The shock wears off quickly, though, and he smiles and lets her slip further into him.

 

The magic is a little slow and a little clumsy from making its way through a body that never had access to it before, but it gets the job done - he'll be able to walk tomorrow.

 

She makes a point to visit him just as often as the others, even though they’re both exchanging the scenery from one cage for that of another. 

 

~

 

Sometimes she has visits that last little longer than a blink.She asks Ragna about it once she realizes what they might be.

 

"Mind-holds are tricky things, especially at their birthings.Sometimes the members will manifest and meet each other all at once in one great gathering.Far more often, though, hold-mates will take a while to circle closer and closer together.Sometimes members will be more tightly bound to some hold-mates than others. Sometimes the gods or circumstance will cause new hold members to join years after the birthing.No mind-hold is exactly the same.”

 

"And these flashes?“

 

"The others have spoken of them as well.I suspect it is simply a straggler."Ragna says before giving her a comforting pat, beaming. “Do not fear, little birdie!”

 

As the flashes last longer and longer, she tries to hold on to whatever clues she can.She can't catch much, but from what she can make out, she suspects it might be a Circle mage.

 

She thinks of snow-capped mountains and forests and endless plains and sketchy taverns and tries her best not to be too disappointed.

 

~

 

The reality is much worse - not that she knows it when she first meets him.

 

She takes in the stubble and the broad shoulders and the rather well-sculpted chest peeking out from the v of his night shirt and she thinks, not for the first time since this all began, that she should ask Ragna if mind-sex is a thing.

 

Then he opens his stupid fucking mouth and, _wyvern-tits,_ a fucking _templar_?

 

~

 

She tries to remember what he is and for the first few weeks she succeeds.She scowls and snaps at him and tries to avoid visiting with him whenever possible.

 

Despite this - and to Deirdre’s _extreme_ annoyance - he seems to make contact with her more than any of the others.

 

Poor Ragna can barely reach him at all and seems to be slowly unraveling with worry over it.

 

“I was chosen as _teacher_!What kind of teacher am I if I cannot even speak with him?” she says, throwing ball after ball of snow against a boulder in frustration.

 

“Yeah, well, feel free to take him off my hands any time you want.Last thing I need is _another_ fucking templar following me around,” Deirdre responds, grumbling.

 

“I’m trying, little birdie, but I _can’t_.”

 

He does make contact with the others, though, who all seem to like him (more or less), making it harder for Deirdre to maintain the proper attitude.

 

(“Come on, Deirdre, it’s been _weeks_.He was probably just surprised - I don’t think he’s _actually_ going to tell anyone.”

 

For slave, Gaius trusts far too easily.)

 

It’s Adaar who eventually gets her to fully cave with regards to plan Ignore, Annoy, and Harass Knight-Captain Cullen.

 

“You’re wasting an opportunity,” he reasons. “You’ve got unparalleled access to a templar and his inner life _and_ the ability to show him the unsanitized aspects of yours.”

 

She’s fairly certain the latter isn’t actually going to do much, but she cannot deny the usefulness of the former.

 

~

 

Her cessation of hostilities starts out as a larger reconnaissance mission - it really does - but he has the gall to slowly chip away at her.

 

She cannot deny that it _is_ a bit endearing (and surprising) how he blushes and averts his eyes and stutters whenever he stops in on her in any state of undress.

 

She likes his flustered look so well, in fact, that she starts pranking him and teasing him and, gods, apparently this stupid blond curly idiot has the ability to turn her fourteen years old again.

 

Despite this, she still only offers him breadcrumbs of herself, not trusting him nearly as much as the others. (Yes, a Carta dwarf who owns maybe three things that haven’t been stolen or smuggled is still more trustworthy than a so-called Champion of the Just.)

 

Still, he offers her crumbs in return … although she’s starting to get the impression that that’s because he only has crumbs to give.He tells her little things about his home, his eyes going distant as he sifts through memories.He tells her about being teased by his sisters and singing songs with his mother and, _fucking Fereldans_ , how are you supposed to hate someone who talks about dogs like that?

 

~

 

She’d forgotten Fereldans consider mabari a few steps closer to personhood than mages.

 

She won’t make that mistake again.

 

~

 

It’s been weeks since any of them have had so much as a flash from Cullen and she’s floating further and further away from herself as Ser Allard paws at her so she can’t really be blamed for being so slow to respond.

 

Ser Allard is a bloody broken mess on the floor by the time she gains control again.

 

_How dare he!_

 

How dare he do this _now_ after proving himself no different from the rest of them? How dare he pretend not to know about the rapes the occur in every fucking Circle across all of Southern fucking Thedas?He’s the bloody Knight-Captain of _fucking Kirkwall_ , for Void’s sake!

 

Worst of all, _how dare he pretend to care about her_?

 

Underneath her anger and her panic and her lingering disgust she feels a hint of satisfaction when he disappears.

 

_That’s right, run, you fucking coward_.

 

~

 

Her cluster tries to help her, they really do, but she’s too far away and Circles are prisons that have had centuries to improve themselves.

 

Cadash takes a hairpin from her once tightly bound bun and uses it to pick the lock.She gets as far as the lower courtyard before a group of Templars catch her, all three of them Smiting her at once.She's barely holding on to consciousness when one of them takes a knife from his boot and cuts most of her hair from her head one swipe, removing the possibility of repeating that escape plan. 

 

The combined strength of the Smites must be affecting her sensate abilities because her cluster, her hold-mates, keep flickering in and out of her vision, their voices muffled and garbled as if they were underwater.

 

Still, Adaar and Ragna try to funnel as much of their magic as they can through her, but the connection is too weak and only a pathetic spurt of flames comes out.It’s unexpected enough, however, that the templars drop her even though she’s done little more than singe their eyebrows.

 

She scrambles away and Siona helps her climb the wall, but she does not make it more than a few feet up before a hook pierces into her shoulder and rips her to the feet of a smugly satisfied templar, who drags her back to her cell.

 

As she sits, still bleeding, she tries to visit Cullen in some sort of last-ditch effort.He's a Templar, a _bloody Knight-Captain_ \- surely he would be able to pull some strings?

 

She tries to reach out to him, grasping with everything that she has, but she just keeps banging up against what feels like a solid metal door in her mind, thick and impenetrable as the one to her cell.

 

She tries shouting for him anyway, but the guard on duty backhands her, breaking her nose.

 

The fight drains out of her and she is silent.

 

~

 

Ragna is crying - big, ugly, heaving sobs that look wrong on her normally cheerful face.

 

Adaar is decimating a tree in field where his mercenary group is camping, weeping and screaming and lashing out again and again like a wounded animal.Two of his Tal-Vashoth companions look on with concern, probably going over everything the Qun has ever said about the inevitability of madness.

 

Siona has a traveling pack strapped to her back and is arguing with her Keeper about borrowing a hart. (“I know, da’len, _I know_ , but Ostwick is too far; you will not make it!”)

 

Cadash is doing his absolute best to get black-out drunk.

 

Gaius doesn't say anything, his face too close to the blank mask slaves learn to master as children, but he comes up to her and holds her silently while she cries.

 

She has no idea what Cullen is doing.

 

~

 

It’s midnight and she is making a list for her future self.A list of tasks, of demands.

 

_Tranquil are good at listening to instructions, right?_

 

Most of them connect back to the first three:

 

_Stay alive._

 

_Never betray your cluster.Not even Cullen_.

 

_If you have a reasonable chance for escape, take it and find your cluster.They will take care of you._

 

She repeats them over and over, willing them to remain even after everything else has been stripped away.Willing them to stand against the complacency and the apathy and the desire to be useful to anything and anyone she knows will soon make up the entirety of her being.

 

Dawn begins to break over the horizon. 

 

It’s almost time.

 

~

 

The templars file in and she knows there is no chance of rescue, no chance of escape.

 

Her cluster doesn’t leave her, though. 

 

“ _Never_ ,” Adaar says and his eyes are red and the beautiful long braid that normally hangs down his back is a mass of frizz.

 

Siona’s voice wavers as she sings a mournful elven lullaby, stroking what’s left of Deirdre’s dark brown hair.

 

Their arms all weave around her, grounding her and carrying her away all at once.She's in a forest, in a tavern, in a cave, on a mountain, on a beach. 

 

She's in a cell.

 

She's in a cell on her knees and a white-hot lyrium brand is moving slowly towards her face.

 

_You are strong, hold-sister._

 

_Stay alive. Find us. You are ours. We will take care of you._

 

Arms around her squeeze tight as the Templars read from the Chant and the brand gets closer.

 

She (they) would like very much to raze every Chantry to the ground.

 

~

 

When she loses her cluster, it is all at once.It's as if she's taken one too many steps on a staircase; her whole self expects something there to catch her, but is met with nothing.

 

Then there is a white-hot burning.

 

Then there is nothing at all.

 

~

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nearly a year later, Deirdre Trevelyan walks through the doors of Skyhold.Her already thin face is now gaunt from rations reduced to mere mouthfuls and bloodied toes stick out from boots long worn away to shreds.

 

She is not more than a few steps in when there is a rush of running feet and then arms around her.She's encircled from all sides and it's quite warm.A definite improvement, considering the weather.Should she be doing something with her arms? 

 

She has fulfilled her mission, although she has long since forgotten why it was important.Her feet hurt and her face is possibly frostbitten and she’s catalogued at least six separate signs of malnutrition.

 

She is not entirely sure it was the logical choice to journey here, to them.

 

But she is here now - entertaining hypotheticals is illogical.

 

She is content.

**Author's Note:**

> I've decided to pick at this verse a little bit more. Not sure if I'm quite as happy with this one as I am with Spider-mind (which I thought up and chugged out in less than 24 hours). There's a lot more exposition and explicit world building in here then I tend to like in my stories, but the TV show was pretty guilty of that as well so I don't feel TOO bad about it.
> 
> Shout out to deleriumofyou, whose story Tell it From the Mountain inspired my love of all things Avvar and is probably the reason Ragna exists (IF YOU HAVE NOT READ IT YOU SHOULD SO YOU TOO CAN LOVE ALL THINGS AVVAR). The naming convention (-dotten) for Avvar is hers. I'll do my best to point out any of her original lore that has made its way to these stories.
> 
> Not sure if I have enough of this verse in me to do a full plot-filled story, but at the very least I plan to have a collection of short one-shots and AU snippets that aren't quite big enough to be their own thing. Stay tuned.


End file.
